I highly doubt these conspiracy theories about Ariadne being hired by Miles, and everyone else in on it to help Cobb let go of the past are true. What do all of them have to gain? Nothing. Plus, Nolan may be known for making mind benders like Memento and The Prestige, but I highly doubt he made a film where you have to invent some crazy backstory to make heads or tails of the film. Nolan himself has said before that everything you need to know is all there.
I highly doubt these conspiracy theories about Ariadne being hired by Miles, and everyone else in on it to help Cobb let go of the past are true. What do all of them have to gain? Nothing. Plus, Nolan may be known for making mind benders like Memento and The Prestige, but I highly doubt he made a film where you have to invent some crazy backstory to make heads or tails of the film. Nolan himself has said before that everything you need to know is all there.
well its just our imagination running wild :mrgreen:
and helping a friend get out from what had been haunting him for a while does not need to gain anything from it
bsopher1177 wrote:The idea of 'Inception' is to be a story crafted in the architecture of the mind - Cobb's mind. What people perceive to be real isn't necessarily so, because the mind can make things appear to be as real as ever. An important thing to remember is the start of the film. Dom Cobb wakes up in a place that we later find out to be limbo – more importantly, Saito's limbo.
I liked your post, but think you may have breezed to quickly through this part...you're hinting at the individual's tendancy to percieve reality as static (a trick of the mind), when reality is dynamic. This to me is the real meat of the movie and why 2 people can watch the exact same work and take 2 completely different meanings from it, yet I would guess no perception would ever be dismissed by Nolan, only any certainty behind the perception.
When it comes to the individual, perception is reality. The individual is unequivocally linked to space/time; when referring to the physical body it is also linked to the laws of physics (which are the commonly accepted laws yet to be adequately disputed by physical particles, all this is breaking down now in quantum but have yet to be experienced in a manner that the physical body can accept).
We (as in our individual form) only exist as a product of the manifested relationships we hold in space/time, as these limits begin to bend, our perceptions become distorted and in turn reality seems to become distorted. This is most apparent to the individual in the dream state, where we can freely bend the laws of physics without losing the anchoring point of the individual. This is why I like the use of the term dream in describing the plot, many individual’s will unknowingly draw connections to there own perceptions of the dream state, which if done unknowingly has already limited your perception of the movie. If you try to free yourself from a static definition of “dream” and offer your perception the freedom to experience the movie with a more dynamic understanding of the “dream” state (mental images unencumbered by some of the conceptions of the body), it seems you will be able to see deeper into the revelation of the movie or maybe more aptly, the revelation of self.
The movie itself unfolds in manner seemingly void of conventional space/time. While space/time are apparent in the movie (or there would be no individual) they do not lend themselves to a strictly literal interpretation of space/time, they are always limited only by Cobb’s present moment perception of them. He is where and when his mind determines he be.
Cobb’s mind illuminates the constant process of the individual trying to determine the reality behind its perceptions, is this all or am I limiting my experience? While he winds and unwinds his thought pattern in a process of recreating his reality, it seems to unfold before you in a manner to ambiguous to seem literal, yet to familiar to seem wholly figurative. You are left with only your individual perception to determine what is “real.” In this way the movie seems to me more a mirror of the mind, as static as you seem or as dynamic as you are.
neo78956 wrote:I highly doubt these conspiracy theories about Ariadne being hired by Miles, and everyone else in on it to help Cobb let go of the past are true. What do all of them have to gain? Nothing. Plus, Nolan may be known for making mind benders like Memento and The Prestige, but I highly doubt he made a film where you have to invent some crazy backstory to make heads or tails of the film. Nolan himself has said before that everything you need to know is all there.
I agree. Consider the scene in which Arthur teaches Ariadne the maze making tricks. If the characters are all in on it and understand Cobb's backstory, why would he have to explain to her that Mal is dead? For the benefit of the audience? Anytime there's any sort of open ending to a film, there are always a bunch of loons there to hijack the creator's vision and subvert it into some outlandish revisionist fan fiction nonsense.
neo78956 wrote:I highly doubt these conspiracy theories about Ariadne being hired by Miles, and everyone else in on it to help Cobb let go of the past are true. What do all of them have to gain? Nothing. Plus, Nolan may be known for making mind benders like Memento and The Prestige, but I highly doubt he made a film where you have to invent some crazy backstory to make heads or tails of the film. Nolan himself has said before that everything you need to know is all there.
I agree. Consider the scene in which Arthur teaches Ariadne the maze making tricks. If the characters are all in on it and understand Cobb's backstory, why would he have to explain to her that Mal is dead? For the benefit of the audience? Anytime there's any sort of open ending to a film, there are always a bunch of loons there to hijack the creator's vision and subvert it into some outlandish revisionist fan fiction nonsense.
Stupidly, I majored in English and Film Studies...a field that has gotten me nowhere. But the moment I realized it was all bullshit was in class we watched Peeping Tom, and the professor (a respectable man with published papers and a PhD) was trying to argue that the production company logo that appeared before the film (akin to MGMs roaring lion) was somehow tied into the narrative of the story. And I was all, "BUT THAT COMPANY EXISTED BEFORE THE FILM WAS MADE! THEY COULD HAVE EVEN CHANGED THE LOGO!" and he was all, "nope its part of the story, and had explanations for why, and the class agreed."
but im with you. I am open and all for deep film introspeciton and analysis, but at some point it gets to be too much. I mean I wrote a paper saying that Office Space really isnt a comedy, its a crime drama and we should be ashamed of ourselves for cheering for white collar thieves and arsonists, but at the same time, I cannot say the movie is about the relationship between democrats and big business.
i am sore from the mental gymnastics I am doing to see and convince myself that the whole thing was a dream.
to that I say, Shaymalan fooled you, and Bruce Willis was never dead. It was the kid who was dead...the kid was the ghost. in fact, bruce willis was the last living man on earth and everyone else was dead, and the kid was his subconscious. how do you like them apples?
I just saw it a second time and I think I get it now.
Cob is constantly spinning the top every time he wakes up. We see it fall down at the beginning of the movie so he's not in a dream from beginning to end like some other theories people have presented. I don't think Cob is lost in the dream world until he goes into limbo to find Fischer and Saito.
In the scene when he is talking to the elderly version of Saito, it seems that Cob has convinced Saito he is in a dream world. And right when we see Saito reach his hand out to the gun (we all know killing yourself wakes you up) but we never actually see these two characters leave limbo. When he reaches for the gun, the movie just cuts away and we see Cob and everyone on the plane. Since we never see them leave, I think Cob is still in limbo at the end. They said limbo is pure subconscious where we get lost in our own projections. Everything that happened to Cob at the end is a projection of what he wanted to happen.
Brendan wrote:I just saw it a second time and I think I get it now.
Cob is constantly spinning the top every time he wakes up. We see it fall down at the beginning of the movie so he's not in a dream from beginning to end like some other theories people have presented. I don't think Cob is lost in the dream world until he goes into limbo to find Fischer and Saito.
In the scene when he is talking to the elderly version of Saito, it seems that Cob has convinced Saito he is in a dream world. And right when we see Saito reach his hand out to the gun (we all know killing yourself wakes you up) but we never actually see these two characters leave limbo. When he reaches for the gun, the movie just cuts away and we see Cob and everyone on the plane. Since we never see them leave, I think Cob is still in limbo at the end. They said limbo is pure subconscious where we get lost in our own projections. Everything that happened to Cob at the end is a projection of what he wanted to happen.
I could buy that with the following condition: He obviously leaves the plane. He has to. So him walking in a daze past everyone, his brain is still gone, and he genuinely meets Miles, but again, is still in limbo. He is just wandering. And at the end....what we see is him in limbo again.
Best movie of 2010. Leo deserves an award for this role, the movie had action, great love story, twists and a ending....I like these type of movie....mind blowing
Brendan wrote:I just saw it a second time and I think I get it now.
Cob is constantly spinning the top every time he wakes up. We see it fall down at the beginning of the movie so he's not in a dream from beginning to end like some other theories people have presented. I don't think Cob is lost in the dream world until he goes into limbo to find Fischer and Saito.
In the scene when he is talking to the elderly version of Saito, it seems that Cob has convinced Saito he is in a dream world. And right when we see Saito reach his hand out to the gun (we all know killing yourself wakes you up) but we never actually see these two characters leave limbo. When he reaches for the gun, the movie just cuts away and we see Cob and everyone on the plane. Since we never see them leave, I think Cob is still in limbo at the end. They said limbo is pure subconscious where we get lost in our own projections. Everything that happened to Cob at the end is a projection of what he wanted to happen.
I could buy that with the following condition: He obviously leaves the plane. He has to. So him walking in a daze past everyone, his brain is still gone, and he genuinely meets Miles, but again, is still in limbo. He is just wandering. And at the end....what we see is him in limbo again.
Wait. No. But..Saito makes the call, right?
I would assume that being lost in limbo for a very long time will result in the body being in a coma until they wake up from the dream. So Miles, Fishcer, everyone on his team on the plane would all be projections the same way Mal was. He dreamed about waking up on the plane and getting home to see his kids. He's still asleep and never left limbo. That's my theory.
